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The modern day Warriors of Sport and Fitness.

Often, when mentioning ‘Warrior’, the first image that comes to mind for some people is of man in ancient times standing on a pile of defeated foes on a battlefield, holding some mighty weapon, breathing heavily, bloodied and bruised and the sole survivor of the battle.

This makes a Warrior appear to be someone who is an ultimate being of fighting skill, hell bent on wiping out all his enemies, right? ....... Wrong!

What makes a true warrior? How can there be any ‘modern day warriors’ when there aren’t any battles going in which to fight? We have battles today, or rather wars fought by soldiers. So why are they not all Warriors? Is it because they have guns, rockets, tanks and all that sort of weaponry?

Think about the legend of King Leonidis and the 300 Spartans. They didn’t have that sort of technology when they fought Xerxes and the invading Persians in ancient Greece, and despite this, they went down in history as heroes and the finest ‘soldiers’ the world has ever known!

A soldier is one of many in a unit and an army has many units with many units inside that unit that are all specialised in some way. An army is a unified mass of men who aim to handle all aspects of the battle! So, a clear difference between a soldier and a Warrior is that the Warrior is very much an ‘individual’.

Let’s look at the bigger picture. The next stereotypical Warrior trademark is ‘battle’ which stirs our thoughts towards fighting. From this we understand that a Warrior is someone who fights; a boxer, perhaps, or a martial arts expert, or even the men in the new cage fighting MMA. This is true to an extent.

So what is a Warrior of Sport and Fitness? For this person their preparation and their purpose is the fight, the ‘application’, the ‘cause’, the ‘desire’, the ‘bravery’, the ’belief’ – and the list goes on. Here we have our modern day Warrior! Or do we? No, we’re still not there, but very close to what a Warrior of Sport and Fitness is all about. In the journey to the moment of the fight is where you will find the Warrior within, never straying from their ‘must do’ attitude, and never taking ‘that will do’ attitude - must be faster, must be stronger, must be better...always. They put their entire self, spirit, mind and body, into the task before them.

For example, consider the Warrior who runs the 100mtr sprint? The basis is the same. Here the ‘warrior mentality’ can be found and applied: they have their cause, they have their journey to travel and their moment to live it. There’s the preparation, the mentality and the desire that they must have. This is the part very few understand until they have experienced it for themselves because to most it seems a lot less important than the fight itself.

To be a true Warrior, and particularly a Warrior of Sport and Fitness, there are ‘sacrifices’ to be made. We are not talking about cutting up your beloved cat in a circle of candles! A true Warrior will pass over the more common of ‘life’s luxuries’. They seek a more significant and higher level of worth and don’t let the everyday things of life chisel away at them however important and needful they seem. This is a test to the modern day Warrior, but other tests come. To a Warrior of Sport and Fitness there often comes the petty torments of those who will not understand the journey he is taking. So why put up with it?

At Sarafan Sports we see these challenges as ‘normal’. For us, going by what everybody else does may be good enough for others, but not for us, not for the true Warrior. We always want better...always. It’s that unique sense of ‘individuality’ that separates us from the crowd, the one from the many, the Warrior from the soldier. Some are naturally talented and will do better than most, but that does not make them a Warrior. They tend to take their gift for granted and will remain at that gifted level, never challenging themselves because they rarely feel the need to. But this is not the way of the Warrior. Being a Warrior is about overcoming the limits and always striving to do better, a special gift in those without a natural one!

So here we are again looking at our ‘sole survivor’ Warrior, never taking the knocks of defeat to heart. He does not think ‘it was taking part that counted’. That’s rubbish! It is how much you apply yourself and the way you apply yourself that counts, continuously, the journey and the preparation.

If you have a goal, whether it be a fight, a 100mtr sprint, losing weight or just to extend your life to see your great grand kids be born, you have a goal, a target, a cause - apply yourself properly, find the Warrior within you and fight beyond the end!

Ask yourself the question, ‘Does a warrior fight?’ Yes, is the answer! But fighting does not always mean beating someone to death? Beating the challenges and the temptations and the disappointments and distractions is where the modern day Warrior will fight, effectively applying the right mentality and attitude, and always striving to do better.